The importance of feeling appreciated at work. How leadership style, perceived appreciation and congruence in personality are related to employee work engagement.

Abstract

In present society, it has become more self-evident to be online and available 24/7. This is among other things due to changes in our economy, which is reflected in our daily work. The current cross-sectional survey study (N=103) focussed on authentic leadership, appreciation and congruent personality traits of the leader and employee as influencers of work engagement. A positive relationship was found between authentic leadership and work engagement, and between appreciation and work engagement. Appreciation partially mediated the relationship between authentic leadership and work engagement. This suggests that an authentic leader partly stimulates employee work engagement through appreciation. Expressing the importance of feeling appreciated at work. Moreover, congruency between leader and employee in the personality trait Conscientiousness moderated the relationship between authentic leadership and appreciation. Thus, when leader and employee were alike on this trait, more appreciation was experienced from the authentic leader. Based on these outcomes practice can focus more on authentic leadership development, providing personal, regular and authentic feedback to foster appreciation and practice can create awareness of biases of similarity in personality. Future research could further focus on finding more mediators and moderators in the relationship between authentic leadership and work engagement.